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JJ Footwear is counting on individual designed bootlegs.
At the third day of GDS 2011, Carl van der Putten from JJ Footwear explained within his presentation “How to maximize profit with minimal investment on the Internet“ the online-sales-concept for boots with wide bootlegs. “Everyone is different – as well as everyone’s legs“, this was the entrepreneur’s motto. He introduced his successful idea of a variable wide-bootleg-system in the speakers corner in hall 7.

JJ Footwear has been one of the biggest shoe companies in the Netherlands since 1930. Early, they recognized the necessity to offer boots with an individual width of bootlegs. 2004 the entrepreneur decided to go for this innovative experiment.

Van der Putten based his decision on the fact that there was hardly an offer within this segment. “A lot of shoe manufacturers offer wide-bootleg-boots, but JJ Footwear is the first company offering individual and different widths of bootlegs.”

Carl van der Putten, who is also CEO of JJ Shoe B.V. made clear, how this development came off. During a measurement of 300 women’s calves it emerged that 40 % of these women needed boots with wider bootlegs than “normal”. The solution was obvious: With the concept of a “Shop in Web shop”, the customers got the opportunity to order boots with an individual bootleg – in a very easy and intuitional way.

But how does the distribution of these shoes via the internet work exactly? JJ Footwear offers Boots with a normal, wide and extra-wide bootleg. For this, women measure the widest part of their calves, look for the size in a special index and order their perfect fitting shoe.

For Van der Putten the promise, JJ Footwear gives its clients and salesmen is clear: “Times, we had to send away our clients without a fitting shoe are definitely over.”

Pleasing: The shoes are available in Germany, the Netherlands and England (among others). The success proves JJ Footwear right: The brand is expanding to the USA shortly.

Text: Katharina Rückwardt